


The Ties That Bind

by IamShadow21



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Canon Compliant, Challenge: helmet_fest2008, Friendship, Gen, Magic, POV Luna Lovegood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-01
Updated: 2008-07-01
Packaged: 2018-01-02 17:11:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1059424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IamShadow21/pseuds/IamShadow21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luna's creation is more than merely paint on a wall. <i> Set between OotP and HBP.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ties That Bind

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Luna month at helmet_fest2008, for the prompt "Luna's paintings on the ceiling".

  
_“One can be a brother only in something. Where there is no tie that binds men, men are not united but merely lined up.”_  
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

***

Luna hummed tunelessly to herself as the colours arranged themselves neatly. It was a finicky palette, and it would shuffle and reshuffle the blobs of paint until they were in what it thought was the correct and proper order. While another might have been cross at the delay, Luna just waited, watching the dust motes caught in sunlight swirl and dance as some invisible creature swept through them.

Downstairs, she could hear her father muttering to himself – or possibly, to one of their resident creatures – while he set up the press for printing that night’s edition. Soon, the house was filled with the rhythmic thumping of the machinery, like a heartbeat.

 _Now_ , thought Luna.

She closed her eyes for a long moment, and thought of everything that was Neville. Not just his hair, or his round face, or the clothes his Gran bought for him, but that part _inside_ of Neville that people didn’t seem to see; though, she thought, Harry seemed to have noticed it a little more of late.

She thought of Neville picking up her books when people knocked them out of her hands. Of the way he looked at her, uncertainly, as if unsure what she’d do next. Of his kind, gentle hands tending his beloved plants. Luna’s brush began to glow in her hand, and she automatically raised it above her head. 

For long hours, or perhaps only minutes, all she thought was _Neville, Neville, Neville_ , as she transferred his likeness onto the ceiling. Her perch on top of the wardrobe was comfortable, and if she felt cramps in her neck, back and shoulders, she ignored them. At some point, she heard her father calling her for dinner. She didn’t respond, and knew he wouldn’t worry. He was just reminding her to eat, as she often did for him, when he was deep into a project.

A smile curving her lips, she dipped her brush, at last, into the gold paint that had been heretofore untouched. 

_Friends_ , she wrote, over and over, winding around Neville’s face, linking him to Harry on his right, and Ginny on his left, until the mesh of words was an unbroken chain, connecting the five together. Then, she drew her wand.

“In troubled times, you will have need of each other,” she intoned. “Be as one.”

Luna touched her wandtip to the nearest word. There was a high pitched ringing sound, and the entire length of writing flashed into brilliant brightness. For a moment, it seemed as though the faces would begin to speak, but they relaxed into quiescence. Luna’s lips curved into a smile, and she leapt neatly from the wardrobe, like a cat, and skipped down the stairs.

“Luna, my love, have you been performing magic?” her father asked. He had a letter in his hand with a Ministry seal on it.

“Only a little, Daddy,” Luna said, helping herself to some Freshwater Plimpy soup. “I’m finished, now.”

“Very well, then,” said her father, discarding the piece of paper without another glance.

Thinking of the Binding Spell she had just performed, Luna felt warm inside, and couldn’t help but beam at her father across the table. They would be safe now, she knew. They had each other.


End file.
